Hi new friends! My name is Mindy and I run Budget Fairy Tale, a blog documenting our Disneyland wedding planning on a tight budget. I’m so excited to be sharing a little bit of our story with the Kiss My Tulle readers! Thank you, Cris!

Before I delve into our engagement story and wedding planning, I should say that I am a life-long huuuuuuuge Disney fan. I grew up about an hour away from Disneyland and our family visited the park at least once a year. I have been an Annual Passholder for 14 years and I go as often as my schedule will allow me! Disneyland truly is my home away from home.

My fiancé Tim proposed in November 2010 at Disneyland during the Believe … in Holiday Magic fireworks show and "snow" that occurs every evening at Disneyland during the holiday season. Tim knew this is my favorite time of the year at Disneyland and knew this would be the perfect time to propose. He even proposed with a pink Mickey ring!

I knew right away I wanted to have our wedding and reception at the Disneyland resort. The Disneyland Hotel has a beautiful Rose Garden for wedding ceremonies and the Grand Californian Hotel offers several beautiful ballrooms for receptions. I discussed it with Tim and luckily he thought getting married at Disneyland was a great idea!

The next hurdle was budget. We both assumed that getting married anywhere on Disneyland property would be very expensive. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that it is actually very reasonable to get married at the Disneyland Hotel. There is an option called the "Escape Package" that includes a full ceremony and lunch reception for the happy couple and 24 guests for only $5,000! Sadly for our wallets, the guest limit was too restrictive for us so we had to look at the next package. The next package up is the "Wishes Package," which offers a few more bells and whistles and starts at $12,000. This amount includes the venue fees, food and drink, and decor. Overall, we felt this was reasonable and we signed the contract for a "Wishes" wedding in May 2012!

To save money, we are also doing a lot of DIY projects. I am making all the centerpieces and my bouquet out of flowers made of fabric. We are also saving glass jars and containers to use as vases, making ribbon wands for our send-off instead of a rose petal toss, and I'm making my own castle card box out of cereal boxes! I also managed to achieve every budget bride's ultimate dream – I found my amazing wedding gown at a thrift shop for under $100!

We are so excited to be getting married at one of our favorite places, and with six months to go our plans are really starting to take shape! Please check out my blog Budget Fairy Tale to continue to follow along with our planning or to learn more about Disneyland weddings. Thanks to Cris and Kiss My Tulle for letting me share our story with you all! Have a magical day!

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I'm Cris Stone and I live in San Antonio, Texas (by way of Salcha, Alaska) with my husband, two kids, and cat. I love french fries, cold weather, and sleeping.

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